It has been three years since Katsuhito Ishii last directed a feature - he released both Sorasoi and My Darling Of The Mountains in 2008 - which is far too long to go without a new picture from the director of the brilliant The Taste Of Tea and Funky Forest.
Based on a manga by Shohei Manabe, Smuggler looks to be quite clearly Ishii's most commercially minded project to date. But, made for mass consumption or not, and made with the backing of a big studio or not, Ishii is who he is and it looks as though there are still plenty of signature touches scattered throughout this one. Here;s how Booklist described the source manga:
A thirty second teaser has just been added to the official site for the film, which you can take a look at below.After his acting career fails, Kinuta is left drifting and disconnected. When a confrontation in an arcade turns bad, he ends up in debt. To earn the money, he takes a job with Jo, cleaning up murder scenes. To his surprise, he makes friends with Jo, but the cruelty of the underworld in which they work shocks him--and inevitably challenges him to find the strength to take a different path.